Tennis drops matchup with Longhorns

March 20, 2003

By Julie Huval

The No. 44 Lady Bear tennis team lost a heart-wrenching match to No. 43 Longhorns of The University of Texas, 3-4.

Baylor came out strong, winning two of three doubles matches to claim the doubles point. Anna Moncolova, a junior from Slovakia, and Vida Mulec, a senior from Slovenia, at the No. 2 doubles spot defeated Lindsay Blau and Kelly Baritot 8-4. Following that match, the No. 1 duo of Alison Bradley, a Dallas junior, and Daria Potapova, a sophomore from Spain, lost to the No. 21 national doubles team of the Longhorns 8-4. Stephanie Balzert, a freshman from Germany, and Izabela Mijic, a freshman from Croatia, finished the deciding match of the doubles portion. Balzert and Mijic led led 7-5 in the match when they broke the service game of Texas. The Lady Bears finished the match winning 9-7.

'We were thinking positive the entire time,' Mulec said. 'We knew we were ready to play doubles. We could win that point for sure.'

Baylor came out swinging in doubles to claim the matches of No. 107 Mulec, 6-3, 6-4, and Potapova, 6-3, 6-0.

Balzert lost to Baritot 6-3, 6-4. Mijic was defeated by Ziva Grasic 6-2, 6-2. Zuzana Krchnakova, a freshman from Slovakia, lost at the No. 6 singles spot in a tough three set match, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2.

The deciding singles match of the night came down to the No. 1 singles spot. Moncolova went head to head with Texas' Kendra Strohm who is No. 52 in the nation.

With Baylor winning two of the five singles matches on the night, Moncolova had to close out the match for Baylor. Strohm fought her way back from losing the first set to take the match 2-6, 7-5, 7-5.

'We came out to win,' head Coach Joey Scrivano said. 'We are not here to win second place and we missed our opportunity.'

Mulec had the same views as Scrivano.

'This was a hard loss,' Mulec said. 'I don't know how to explain it.'

The Longhorns move to 5-6 for the spring season and 5-0 in conference play. The Lady Bears are 6-8 for the season and 4-1 in the Big 12 Conference.

'This is a rebuilding year [for our team],' Scrivano said. 'We have a lot of young players and we are bumping heads with a lot of top teams.'

The women's team continues home play when they take on the University of Kansas at 11 a.m. on March 29.

On the men's tennis team, No. 36 Zoltan Papp, a senior from Hungary, was named as one of the Big 12 Conference co-men's tennis players of the week along with Texas A&M University's Lester Cook. The two were honored after their performances from matches played during the week of March 11 through Monday, the conference office announced Tuesday.

Papp is undefeated in Big 12 singles matches, as well as an undefeated record in doubles as the No. 4 Bears swept Oklahoma State University 7-0 and the University of Oklahoma 7-0.